Fat People Get a Positive Hearing in S.F. / Supervisors set vote on protected status

Edward Epstein, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published
4:00 am PDT, Thursday, May 4, 2000

2000-05-04 04:00:00 PDT SAN FRANCISC -- It was a big day for the fat at San Francisco City Hall yesterday as a committee of the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed legislation that would ban discrimination against them.

Under the proposal, which is similar to laws in Santa Cruz, Washington, D.C., and Michigan, weight and height would be added to the long list of characteristics protected against discrimination in the city. Others include race, religion, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual preference, gender identity, disability and place of birth.

The legislation, which heads for a vote at the full board Monday, allows the Human Rights Commission to investigate complaints and make a finding of discrimination. That would allow a person to file a civil lawsuit, but it would not carry any other penalties.

However, city contractors who break the discrimination law could be fined or lose their contracts.

Advocates including Wann, who is active in the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, told supervisors on the Finance and Labor Committee that they are tired of being discriminated against when seeking a job, an apartment or medical care. Along the way, they threw jabs at the multibillion-dollar diet industry.

They said the common perception that fat people are unhealthy has got to go.

"I don't know anyone who's the perfect size. . . . But maybe people who are perfect are also discriminated against," said Wann, author of the book "Fat!So? Because You Don't Have to Apologize for Your Size!"

"Our society is crazy, obsessed with a certain look that very few people possess."

Wann added, "We often say fat people choose to be that way, but it isn't so." She said a person's weight is 80 percent determined by genetics, so lots of Americans are wasting scads of money pursuing Cindy Crawford-like figures.

Wann weighs 270 pounds, which she described as "my natural weight."

Fitness instructor Debby Burgard told of once teaching a movement class for women over 200 pounds.

"In this safe place, they were sparkling, exuberant, radiant," Burgard said. "After my class, I went to teach an eating disorder class where thin and average-size women were torturing themselves about every bite of food.

"They had broken spirits and beautiful nails. I realized I was working with the healthiest fat women and the sickest thin women."

Many of those who testified yesterday had firsthand stories of insensitivity or discrimination to tell.

Sixteen-year-old Margarita Rossi, who said she leads "a healthy and active life," complained that the nurse-practitioner she visited for help with a gynecological problem made repeated remarks about her weight and never got around to conducting an exam.

"I got annoyed and angry," said Rossi, a student at the city's School of the Arts. "This health professional lectured me and didn't show concern about my genuine health problem."

Deborah Iyall said that once when she quit a job her boss told her, "I don't think you should leave, because you're so fat you won't get another job."

Carole Cullum, a lawyer who is a member of the city's Board of Appeals, told of constant problems with being able to fit into seats at restaurants or theaters. But she said progress is being made.

The Coppolla-Niebaum restaurant in North Beach and the Sony Metreon and 1000 Van Ness theater complexes are making accommodations by doing things like having seats with liftable arms or booths that can accommodate fat people or people in wheelchairs, she said.

"It's really not requiring them to do anything that they aren't doing already," to meet rules under the decade-old Americans with Disabilities Act, Cullum said.

"San Francisco is a city of tolerance. That's why we all love to live here," she added.

The rail-thin Ammiano, a former stand-up comedian, first proposed the legislation last year after a gym put up a billboard South of Market featuring space aliens that proclaimed, "When they come they'll eat the fat ones first."

He said yesterday that the proposal is no laughing matter.

"This legislation has been trivialized," he said. "There is still that aura among my colleagues, present company excluded."

Ammiano said that he, for one, has learned his lesson. He said he would enter a "12-step program for stand-up comedians. . . . I'm Tom Ammiano and I told fat jokes."